A few Dumb Questions regarding Paris
 

We've been to Paris a few times, but I still have some rather dumb questions...

1) We are flying AA into CDG (Terminal 2A). We have never taken the RER before, but we will this time. Is it easier to just walk from 2A to the RER station? We have walked from 2A to the CDG TGV station last year. (Are the TGV & RER stations at the same place?)

I assume we'll buy our tickets from a ticket window. Is the RER ticket good for a connecting Metro ride? Can we also buy a Metro carnet from the same window?

Our hotel is near Voltaire station in the 11th arr. Our flight arrives at 7:30am (Friday). We won't have checked luggage. Realistically, how long will it take for us to get to our hotel?

2) We will be riding the bus quite a bit. When we get on the bus, what do we "do" with our ticket? Do we validate it on a machine on the bus?

3) We are planning to visit Pere Lachaise Cemetery. We're not going to see every famous graves, prob just the composers and Oscar Wilde. Will 2-3 hours be adequate?

4) Jardin du Luxembourg. We are planning to visit early evening. What time does it close? Sunset will be at 8pm the day we visit. Also, we'll be taking the bus there. One bus goes along the northen edge (Rue de Vaugirard); another one goes along the eastern edge (Blvd st Michel). Which one is a better choice if we want to see the "main section" of the garden & the Medici fountain?

5) We will get the Forfait Loisirs Château de Versailles. What's the correct way to pronounce it when I buy it from the SNCF station?

Pls take a look at this rough itin:

<b>Day 1</b> (Friday - arrival day)
Flight arrives 7:30am
RER/Metro to hotel, check in
Pere Lachaise Cemetery
Lunch
Return to hotel for nap
Mus&eacute;e Carnavalet (opens until 6)
Mus&eacute;e Cognacq-Jay (if have time)

Day 2-3 we'll be in Loire region

<b>Day 4</b> (Monday)
Arrive at Gare Montparnasse via TGV ~1pm
Check in hotel (next door to Montparnasse)
Louvre until closing (6pm)
Jardin du Luxembourg (see question 4 above)

<b>Day 5</b> (Tuesday)
SNCF train from Montparnasse to Versailles
Return to Paris by 5pm the latest
6:25pm train from Gare du Nord to Bruges

1. They're the same train station - in fact, the &quot;official&quot; name of the RER stop is <b>Aeroport Charles de Gaulle 2 TGV</b>. The RER ticket is good all over the M&eacute;tro network - just don't leave the system until you reach your destination. You can buy a <i>carnet</i> at the same window. Figure an hour to the hotel.

2. There is a date/time stamping machine on the bus that you use to cancel your ticket. You can transfer to other buses within 90 minutes of the printed time stamp. You are required to validate every time you board another bus, but there is no limit to the number of transfers within the 90 minutes.

4. St-Michel. I'm not even sure if there's an entrance to the grounds on the Vaugirard side.

5. <i>for-FAY lwa-ZEER</i>

I assume you are coming from N America...the machines to buy metro/RER tickets will not accept N American credit cards as they dont have chips. You will need to go to a teller to get your tickets.

Took hubby and I a while to figure this out on our last trip :)

I believe the RATP machines DO accept coins, though. So load up with Euro tokens before you leave the US. The lines at the window can be horrendous. If you encounter lines at the machines, well - you've done all you could.

Good suggestion Robespierre

yk-thanks for asking the questions! I had some similar ones, so I appreciate it!

I have some euro coins left over from my last trip, enough for my RER ticket. Anything I should know about buying a ticket from one of the machines? I'll be going to the Luxumbourg stop.

Also, I'll be arriving from the US on United and my itinerary doesn't say which terminal. Anyone know which terminal UA usually arrives in and how I go about getting to the RER station from there? I remember a very long walk last time...

I don't think there is anything special about the ticket machines to know, except I believe everything is only in French on them (instructions, offers, etc.). I might be wrong about that, can't really remember, but I expect they are only in French.

I don't think you can really see Luxembourg Gardens very well from any bus, it would be better to walk in them. You can see a spot of them on St Michel, I guess. There is an entrance to the grounds on all sides (more than one on each side), I go into them from Vaugirard all the time, on the east side of the Senat building (where you'd enter if coming from place de l'Odeon). YOu can't see the Medici fountain from any bus that I know. I think it closes at dusk. I remember being shooed out once by the police and it wasn't pitch dark yet. So that would probably be around official time of sunset.

I think 2-3 hours is plenty for Pere Lachaise. I don't think I've ever spent 3 hours there myself.

I don't know where United usually lands, but I think it's terminal 1. I left on United once, and that's where it was, but that was a couple years ago.

The personnel of P&egrave;re Lachaise give free maps to all visitors who request them. You can find those graves on the map, but there are also maps on signboards in the cemetery, if you don't get the paper version.

Oscar Wilde is very easy to find. So is Fr&eacute;d&eacute;ric Chopin, among others.

I guess I didn't express myself clear enough regarding Jardin du Luxembourg. We do plan to get off the bus and walk inside. :)

Since we're coming from Louvre, there are 2 bus options:

# 58 drops off along rue de Vaugirard @ Musee du Luxembourg

# 21 &amp; 85 drop off at the RER Luxembourg stop (along Blvd St Michel)

I'm trying to see which bus route takes us closer to the &quot;main sights&quot; of Jardin du Luxembourg when we get off. I think we'll only have about 1 hour there before we have to leave by sunset.

Concerning the use of North American credit cards to buy RER tickets in CDG:

We used our US Visa card to purchase RER tickets from a machine in April. As far as I know, the card has no chip.

A couple from Australia could not use their cards, so we bought their tickets for them.

However, returning to CDG from St. Michel station, our card did not work, even with the help of a very nice Parisienne.

The ticket office opened in time for us to purchase there.

Byrd

The palace is on the north (Vaugirard) side, at the <b>Senat</b> bus stop. You can see the entire layout from the satellite view at maps.google.com

The RER ticket machines should be easy to handle - just specify Paris as your destination, as the same ticket price pertains no matter where you alight.

Kristina,
United arrives at terminal 1. You need to take the free automated CDGVAL train from Terminal 1 to the terminal 3 Roissypole stop (it is two stops away).

Thanks for the replies!

I found a great website which has tons of details on all things related to Parisian trains, RER and Metro.
http://parisbytrain.com/
It includes step by step instructions for taking the RER to and from CDG (including photos) for nervous nellies like me. :-)

The ticket machines have a roll bar that you can use to choose English as your language to walk you through how to buy your tickets. We were told that the machines that accept bills will accept US credit cards, but the machines that accept coins (no bills) will not accept credit cards without the chip. So, try to find the machines with a credit card slot and a place to put paper bills - hopefully that will work for you.

top with a new question:

AGain, regarding taking the Paris buses... Robes, are you saying that when we board a bus, we cancel our ticket with the machine on board. And IF we transfer to another bus within 90 minutes, we still need to cancel the same ticket again on the new bus?

If you plan to get off a bus and walk in the gardens, it doesn't make any difference which bus stop you use, the park isn't that huge between those two points, you'd be walking that distance anyway, whichever one you used.

Yes, you must put your ticket in the machine when you enter a bus, anytime you enter public transportation with a ticket that requires validating you must do that, otherwise it's just like getting on a bus without a ticket. I know in some cases it doesn't make any sense, but those are the regulations (it really doesn't make any sense when using a daily Mobilis pass and it is already validated once, but the regulations tell you to validate it every time you get on a bus -- maybe just because the conductor is supposedly looking out for people getting on without validating a ticket). Those only time you didn't need to validate a ticket on a bus is under the old Carte Orange pass system, where you had to show it to the driver. I haven't used a Navigo so don't know its custom.

IN any case, validate your bus ticket by sticking it in the machine, there is no reason not to except for people trying to get away with a bus ride when they aren't entitled to one, and the machine notes that (when the ticket isn't valid).

I think the reason stamping a <i>Mobilis</i> is mandatory is that an unstamped one could be used another day. The user is supposed to fill in the date of validity on the ticket, but it will work if that blank is empty. On trains, the turnstiles mark the ticket as used on a particular day.

Kristina, that is a GREAT web site, thanks for posting it!

bookmarking

Christina and Others: With the Navigo Decouverte, you place the plastic holder with the card in it close to the card reader when you get on a bus. The ND doesn't have disposible &quot;tickets,&quot; so you don't get anything stamped. When the ND has been read, the reader beeps to let you (and the driver) know you are legal.